


One Minute There Was Road Beneath Us

by SongAboutExiles



Series: One, Two, Three Heartbeats [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Deflowering, Existential Angst, F/M, Fluff, Honeymoon, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Stag Nights & Bachelor Parties, Weddings, Whore!Clint, bruce and tony show the haters a thing or two, clint and natasha are complicated and messy and hurty, steve rogers to the rescue, virgin!steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 10:51:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1776457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongAboutExiles/pseuds/SongAboutExiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to One, Two, Three Heartbeats in four chapters: the bachelor party, clint and steve after the bachelor party (ahem), the wedding, and the honeymoon. Tony knows how to throw a hell of a party, Bruce and Clint have started instinctively trading off Natasha management, Clint has a hell of an idea about how to stabilize his and Tasha's lives, Steve is thoroughly de-virginated, wedding adorableness, shameless fluff, Tony and Bruce make a video (not that kind of video).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Feels Like Reckless Driving

**Author's Note:**

> You don't have to read [Heartbeats](http://archiveofourown.org/works/787686/chapters/1486319) first, but, well, it won't make much sense otherwise. All chapter titles from "Falling Is Like This" by Ani diFranco.

In the end, naturally, 'small and intimate' turned into 'where do we sit Galaga Guy--he's single isn't he?' and wasn't that just the way of weddings? What surprised Bruce was how little he minded, how little it stressed him. No press was his only rule, and thankfully it was one that Tony shared. They had actual spies coming to this thing, whose covers were already close to permanently blown. And since their 'wedding bloat' consisted of SHIELD operatives, team members, a schwarma place's owner and the proprietors of a now much-frequented Indian grocery...again, Bruce could handle it. Would handle it. 

Bruce could handle a lot of things now. Happiness and regular, unbelievably satiating sexual release could mellow out even a big, green rage monster. Tony had some theories about bleeding out the decades of pent-up psychological misery that sounded vaguely medieval to him, but he didn't even care. He and Tony could have each other any way they wanted, and there was no fear. Just exquisite, shattering love. 

When the first tabloid story broke (Tony had sighed, 'adieu sweet grocery fairy, we hardly knew ye') it was salacious and filthy and Tony was the one sputtering while all Bruce could do was laugh at the abysmal grammar and creative misappropriation of what he swore bore only a passing resemblance to the English language.

They were in the bathtub at the time, soaking sore muscles after a workout, reading the news on the screen over the tub. "Iron Man <3s the Hulk--WEDDING BELLES!" Tony muttered something about lawyers and gag orders and Bruce let him, but eventually Tony caught on.

"Are you...giggling?" He turned back to look at Bruce, eyebrow raised.

"The second 'e' in belles! The....the emoticon..." It was ridiculous. Too ridiculous to be angry over.

Now the shitstorm of homophobic bullshit that started popping up like mushrooms in the very darkest of the Internet's troll caves--that was upsetting. Tony wrote a neat little botnet that scurried around the web depriving those assholes of their freedom of speech by pulling up their browser histories and publishing their most outrageous porn sites in response to their own posts. 

Even that, though, didn't really matter. The wedding was happening, the license was procured. Hell, Bruce and Tony even sat through an interminable meeting with the head of the Stark legal team where he discovered exactly how rich he was about to be, and how Tony was leaving every red cent and last share of stock to him upon his death to distribute as he saw fit. "Give it away, tear it down, make it over--do anything you want," Tony had said, holding Bruce's hand, which was a little shaky after all those zeroes and all that paper-signing. "Fund MSF for the next ten years, as you can see, we wouldn't even miss it." We.

There was a fight after that--the most serious fight they'd ever had. Once the shock had worn off, Bruce was outraged to the core of his hippy, socialist little heart. So much money, enough to eradicate malaria, vaccinate every child ever born in sub-Saharan Africa, build schools and birth control clinics and and and. 

"See...this is what I mean when I say I don't deserve you," was all Tony could say, taking the wind out of Bruce's sails--it was a serious fight, but it hadn't lasted as long as some of their most minor skirmishes, like whether it was okay to leave butter out on the counter in a dish. "Take it. Fix it. Just, you know, let me have my toys. There's always new things to invent, and they always tend to make a crap ton of money. Money's easy. Being a good guy isn't. It's why I need you." 

And hell, what was Bruce supposed to say to that? Apparently, 'fuck me' because that was the answer to almost anything.

The one thing that truly baffled Bruce was Tony's insistence on having the mother of all bachelor parties. Every one of his imminently sensible objections had been met with a devil-may-care grin and a 'trust me!'

**

Trust Tony, evidently, to rent out the trendiest nightclub in New York for a whole night, hire an entirely different set of caterers than the ones doing the wedding, and replace all the booze with the best money could buy, then shove in as many folks as they could from work, from Stark Industries, hell were those some of Bruce's college friends? The man could do party, as if there were ever any doubt. 

If there was a discernible theme, it was 'debauchery.' Just a couple of hours in, folks were starting to look a little bit undone, and was that Phil dancing with that cute little tech boy on his team? Huh. Adorable. _Wonder if he'll regret that tomorrow?_ When cute tech boy's tongue ended up down Phil's throat, Bruce figured that even if the older man regretted it, he might only regret not doing it sooner. 

People watching was definitely the most fun pastime at this shindig. Bruce nursed his wine, sitting in a comfortable armchair, feeling boneless and sated from the thorough fucking before they left and happy watching his friends enjoy themselves for once. God knew they'd earned it. 

Soon, Natasha gravitated to him, perching on the wide arm of the chair in a somewhat indecent scarlet dress with a plunging neckline and a long slit up each side for mobility. She never wore clothes she couldn't fight in. Not even here. Not even at the wedding, he figured. "Let's play I Spy," Bruce murmured, slowly laying a hand on her back.

In the months since the proposal, they'd grown closer. She was standing up for him at the wedding, and Clint was doing the same for Tony. He'd learned that despite having to go slowly and, well, obviously, Natasha liked to be touched. By a very few people, and very carefully, but she could, in the right mood, be downright feline about it. This time she leaned back into his hand and he scritched lightly up her silk-clad back while she sighed contentedly. "Okay. I spy something scandalous at your two." 

"That's not how the game works," Bruce reminded her, but he looked at his two o'clock and saw May from Phil's team and Maria dancing. "Aw, and that's not scandalous, that's pretty." 

"You don't know them. Trust me, it's scandalous."

"Um, I don't think I know how to play your version of I Spy." Bruce laughed and shook his head. "How about Phil and the pretty boy?"

"Worst kept secret at SHIELD." 

"You know this is actually just gossip, right?"

"Intelligence-gathering, Bruce," she corrected him primly, with an unholy glint in her eyes.

"Your hawk's having a good time. Might get his wings clipped if he doesn't stop trying to get Steve to dance, though." Clint was looking gorgeous, too, and their murder dolls definitely knew how to dress to complement each other, even if it was purely subconscious. Clint's low-rise leather pants and boots and the close-fitting silk knit shirt certainly showed off the assets.

"You have no idea how bad he wants in those tight pants of Steve's." Natasha made the low, amused noise that passed for a laugh with her. "And I'll even bet you ten whole dollars that he gets in them before the end of the wedding reception." Ten bucks was the central betting currency unit for the team, after all. 

"What about you?" Bruce pitched his voice only for her, knowing she could pick it out of the surrounding uproar. 

"What about me? I'm not jealous." And he could tell she wasn't, not exactly, but something was bothering her about it.

"No...no, you know that he's yours." And she was his, and that was that.

"Maybe he shouldn't be." 

"What? Tasha, look at me." Her head turned, then her body, and she toed off her heels to tuck her bare, cold feet under Bruce's thigh. "What are you even talking about?" 

"That's the kind of person Clint deserves." She nodded to Steve, who was still blushing and squirming rather adorably from the other man's attentions, just on the cusp of accepting that dance despite himself and his supposed heterosexuality and Godliness and upstanding character. "And Steve...he believes in God, but Clint could make him SEE God." 

"Not talking about Steve right now. You know Clint only wants you. And..." Clint and Natasha had never worn rings, but he nodded to the arrow necklace, similar to the hourglass one that the archer had started to wear. "He would never leave you. Not even for Captain Fucking America." 

"I know that," she murmured, fingering the necklace absently. "But I should let him go, Bruce. He deserves some happy. Some normal. He should just be able to...to BE." And not have to spend so much energy, so much time, just to keep her here. "He was able to rise above how he was made, but I don't think I ever will." 

"Tasha...I don't pretend to know what happened to you. Either of you. I don't pretend to know or even understand the things you've both done, seen, lost. But you have to see that Clint would rather die than lose you. You see that, right?" Everyone else did.

"He wouldn't die. He would be sad for a while, but he wouldn't die, and he would eventually be happy." 

This conversation was darker than it had any right to be, given the riotous frivolity going on around them. Of course, Tony chose that moment to pop up and inform the too-serious duo that "Hey, guess what! There's a VIP Room, and you're both VIPs!" Bruce was shocked, shocked beyond belief. 

Tony was rounding up the team and plus-ones, like he was subtly herding somewhat drunken cats toward the velvet ropes at the back. Bruce looked at him and Tony met his eyes, flickering them over to Tasha. Yeah, she was not in her happy place, and Tony saw it from across the room. Time to get her somewhere more private.

Clint was on the same wavelength, and he left Steve to get herded by Thor and Jane--Thor of course understanding instantly the concept of a Very Important Person--into the cordoned off lounge. He moved right into her space and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I hear they have the REALLY good vodka behind the ropes," he murmured, smiling and drawing her off her perch. 

"You always know just what to say." She quirked her lips into an attempt at a smile, but this one didn't even come close to her eyes. "How's it going with Mr. Tall, Blonde, and Hung?" 

"Irrelevant. It's going irrelevantly." Bruce watched Clint expertly steer his lover through the throng and into the relative quiet of the VIP lounge, where the music was more subtle, more sensual, the couches were long and comfortable, and even the platform with a pole was somehow classy. Clint sat on one end of a sofa, pulling Tasha down into the crook of his arm as he nodded for the waiter to just bring a bottle and some glasses. He stroked her cheek in a rare show of public affection, and she surprised him by darting in to kiss him. 

"Bruce, stop watching people and start making out with me." Tony was still on champagne, but a hell of a lot of it, apparently. 

Bruce laughed and found a spot on the couch opposite Clint and Tasha, and Tony flopped bonelessly into his lap, mouth latching onto Bruce's like he'd been dying to do this for oh, minutes. Minutes were really the upper limit of Tony's patience.

The chuckle was swallowed by Tony's insistent mouth and soon Bruce lost all semblance of situational awareness. It was their party, and if Tony wanted that party to be in their mouths, then who was he to argue? Finally, his fiance let him up for air, and he glanced back to where Tasha and Clint were just a few minutes before.

Phil and his adorable little twink were currently occupying the abandoned couch corner, but a moment's search located his missing wedding party on the small dance floor. Natasha had her arms around Steve's neck, her compact body stretching gracefully to manage the task, with a two-thirds-full bottle of top shelf vodka on the edge of the platform nearby. Clint was snugged up behind her, and he reached over to take a swig off the bottle before returning to wrapping his arms around his lover. 

Steve was trying to look everywhere BUT at Clint, and then Tasha did exactly what anyone with an ounce of guile (Ie, not Steve Rogers) could see coming a mile off. She let Clint spin her out into a twirl that sent her skirt swinging dangerously high, and she...didn't come back. She collected the bottle and wandered off bemusedly, leaving Clint to step into the space she'd vacated against Steve's ridiculously broad chest.

The poor man blinked like a deer in the headlights, Clint murmured something, took one of the big hands and put it behind his own neck and the other at the small of his back. Steve flushed even deeper, but a smile crept over his lips and he pulled Clint in tight against him, pressing their foreheads together. 'Now, was that so hard?' Bruce could make out the words from his vantage point, and the quiver of a low laugh along Steve's shoulders. 

And all of that was well and good and very hot, but..."Tony, go dance with someone, I'm gonna go fetch Tasha."

"When did Tasha-fetching become your job?" Tony groused but there was a tone in Bruce's voice he recognized, even three or so sheets to the wind. 

"Since she started freaking me out a little while ago, and for once Clint seems to be off-duty. Go make Phil dance with you."

The sheer mischief of that proposal had Tony sliding off Bruce's lap and crawling over to Phil and (what WAS his name? FITZ! Yes!) and begging to borrow the older man for a little while just to see what would happen. What happened was that Phil shrugged good-naturedly and danced with Tony.

Bruce wound through the crowd and found her leaning against the wall in the shadows to the left of the stage, bottle loose in her fingers, back to the wall, one bare foot planted against it. Girl just did not like shoes. "Hey, you." 

"Mmm. They're cute, huh?" No doubt to whom she was referring.

"Be cuter with you in there, too. Don't you like Steve?" Hell, Bruce was pretty sure HE fancied Steve, but that was neither here nor there. 

"I think Steve is one hundred percent the real deal, Bruce. Of course I like him. Of course I wouldn't mind getting in on that action. But it's hard enough to have Clint's...to have Clint, when he's so much better than me." She took a swig and offered the bottle to Bruce, who figured he could risk a little hedonism without losing his inhibitions. Particularly as worried as he was. 

When he handed it back, he went to lean next to her. "Clint slapped a giant pressure bandage over...this..." She gestured to herself. "But he didn't need a baby-sitter to remember to be a good person."

"I have a feeling that at first, he did." 

"Fury sent Clint to eliminate me when I was sixteen. Half my life ago, Bruce. And I still see red." She looked at him, predator-eyed. "And what's worse? A very big part of me still likes to see red." 

_Jesus._ "From one deadly weapon to another, let me say, honestly, that I get it. But the fact remains, it's you he loves. Or whatever you two call it, since you're not children. Whatever you are to each other, it's not something he does out of obligation. Surely you know that." 

"Yeah. I know that." Another long pull on the bottle and she looked at Bruce levelly. "Just for tonight, I think...just tonight I'm gonna answer Fury, who's been texting me for the last half an hour about a mission and a car out front and would I hurry the fuck up already." A little fishing about retrieved her phone from her bra, and she showed him the string of texts and the increasingly colorful language. "And I'm going to let Clint have a little real fun. He deserves it." 

Bruce just did not like any of this, not one tiny bit. "Hey. Natasha." He plucked the bottle from her fingers as she toed on her shoes. "There'd be a hell of a big hole beside me Saturday night if you're not there." 

"Duly noted, Doctor Banner." But she still looked tired, and sad, even when she kissed his cheek and wound her way over to Clint and Steve, unobtrusively touching Clint's hip from behind and showing him the phone with its parade of texts. Clint kept an arm around Steve's neck as he leaned down to have a murmured conversation with her, but she said something that made him smile and relax. After a kiss and a slap on the ass for Clint and a peck on the cheek for Steve, she left.

Bruce wished he could feel as reassured as Clint seemed to, considering the other man went right into kissing Steve. Softly, slowly, like gentling a skittish horse, until Steve grabbed his waist just a little roughly and opened up to it.

In any event, Black Widow was in Fury's hands right now, and if that didn't exactly erase his concerns, at least it allowed him to go cut in on Phil and claim back his fiance, who had surpassed champagne-tipsy and was now heading up onto adorably hammered.

Only Tony could be this damned cute when sloshed. He was never a mean drunk, never surly. Just...bouncy. Bouncy and sweet and funny and horny, and Bruce didn't want to miss a second of it. 

"I love you!" Tony enthused, wrapping himself around Bruce like a well-tailored and yet very clingy suit. 

"I love you, too," Bruce laughed, hands sliding down to cup Tony's ass and bring him in for a messy, hot kiss.

"You are, totally, the best person ever. You know that? I mean, you leave all THIS to have a heart to heart with Natasha, who is almost as hot as me, and do I even care? NOPE. because you are the best person ever. And I love you. And you deserve the world's most epic blow job. In fact, I wanna suck your cock until I hear you howl and feel you go all green and huge and..." Tony's soliloquy was interrupted by Bruce's tongue down his throat, and a firm if careful maneuvering onto the nearest couch space.

"Because I am only, ever yours," Bruce said into Tony's mouth, his hands sliding up under the suit coat, rucking up the tailored shirt, till he could find skin to scratch idly. "You never have a thing to fear." Not anymore.

"EXACTLY my POINT." Tony enunciated carefully, straddling Bruce's lap and rolling his hips. 

"God, I should just point you at the damn pole, but I don't want anyone else to have this." Bruce cupped Tony's head and kissed him hard, biting at his lower lip and reducing his fiance to a drunken, babbling mess. "MINE. Not theirs."

"Take me home. Strip for you there. God, I want you to fuck me. Been DAYS." Penetration was still not something they did constantly--poor Tony just couldn't keep up, and they'd found a balance. But something's been niggling at the back of Bruce's mind for awhile now. Another experiment, and one he's not in the least afraid to go straight home and try.

"No." When Tony looks at him, mussed and befuddled and licking his lips like the world's most expensive whore, it makes Bruce's heart clench in his chest and his balls draw up tight.

"No? But I'm good, I'm so ready..." 

"No, because I'm going to take you home, and you're going to fuck me." It took a second for the words to penetrate through the fog of hormones and single malt. 

"Shit. Are you trying to make me come in my pants? They're very good pants," he ground out through gritted teeth.

"I just feel we've been a little too focused on how I'll fuck you, that we've ignored the entire issue of my ass." And its perpetually empty state because Tony took 'power bottom' to ridiculous and exhilarating new heights.

"How dare we? Your ass is amazing."

"I know. Now let's go home, huh? I'm sure they all know what to do here without us." Bruce helped Tony to his feet and grabbed his hand. Somehow, he managed to get them through the crowd, finding and saying goodnight to their friends and redirecting Tony's sloppy and overly-enthusiastic love for all of them as much as possible, although there were quite a few 'I love you, man, no seriously, I do's' that were unavoidable.

Once in the limo, secured in Bruce's arms, Tony looked up at his lover and blinked, cupping his face and smiling. It was the smile that always made Bruce's stomach tight with a fierce, desperate protectiveness. "I'm gonna marry the **fuck** outta you. We're gonna have babies. We're gonna live forever. We're gonna fix this fucked-up mess of a world. But first...I'm gonna seriously marry the fuck out of you for everyone to see." 

_Oh, Jesus, Tony._ "Yeah. Yeah, baby. All those things. More. Anything we can dream of." And if Bruce knew in ways that Tony did not that the universe was seldom so kind, he said nothing. Only held his beloved closer, and willed the universe to just...keep its fucking mouth shut. For a few years, at least.


	2. You Hit What You Head For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint takes Steve home. Only, it kind of ends up the other way around. Polyamory, heading toward a triad. This chapter is all Clint/Steve. References to past child abuse and general sadness.

Clint felt her absence, his partner in crime, his best friend, his best beloved. But part of loving Natasha was knowing when to let her go, even if the letting go made him sick with fear, because she had to be trusted enough to come back. _Always come back. Please always come back._

**

Natasha leaving drove him deeper into Steve's strong arms, and he felt his stomach flip when the bigger man pulled Clint in tight and one hand cupped Clint's head to Steve's chest. It was that tenderness, the sweetness of the "are you okay?" murmured into his ear, that confirmed what Clint had been suspecting for a long time. Steve was the one. 

There was too much between him and Tasha, too much pain and too much desperate, aching need, too much obsession. It was festering, and they were heading for the edge of the cliff. And when they hit it, hit the fine line between earth and sky, there wouldn't be a messy break up. There wouldn't be broken hearts between them. There would be a body count. There would be suicide by SHIELD agents trying to get them back under control. There would be broken bodies, stained red forever, blood on their mouths and all over their hands as they flew apart together.

The wound needed to be lanced. Cauterized. They needed something, they needed someone. They needed GOOD. They needed pure. They needed a man that Natasha already cared for, and that Clint could trust. Lust wasn't a problem--it never was for them. They'd taken dozens of people to their bed in the last sixteen years, and it had never been even the remotest issue.

But what they needed was wonder. What they needed was wide-eyed, full of hope, full of life. What they needed was the beautiful ignorance of children not broken by cruel hands and ugly deeds.

What they needed was love. So this time, Clint allowed Natasha to go, to do whatever it was Fury wanted her to. This time, he would spin the webs, set the target, and she would fly into it, true and straight and strong.

**

Steve was a nervous wreck on the way back to the apartment, fidgeting in the unaccustomed luxury of one of the town cars Tony had made sure to provide for safe transport home after the party. 

Clint raised the privacy screen, then turned to Steve, moving his calloused hand from Steve's to reach up and cup the still-so-painfully-young face. "Hey, handsome. Look at me, okay?" 

Steve complied, face flushed warm under Clint's palm. "Still sure you want this?" he whispered, and Steve's deeper blush answered for him. 

"I...I don't...I haven't..." he stammered. "And you...you obviously have, and...." 

_Oh dear god, the virgin thing. Boy's gonna break my heart or make me come in my pants or both._ "I wouldn't lie to you. You know that, yes?"

Steve nodded, and moved fractionally closer into Clint's hand on his face, like he was petting himself.

"Then listen to me." Clint leaned in even more and brushed his lips across Steve's tasting and feeling the quick intake of breath. "What you have or haven't done doesn't matter one bit. Yes, I know what I'm doing, so trust me when I say that I will get us through this, and it will all be...well. I'll show you how it'll be." 

He slid his hand down, thumb pressing gently into Steve's chin as he deepened the kiss, using another surprised exhalation to slip his tongue past Steve's lips, into his mouth. Christ, the boy even tasted innocent, of Coca-Cola on a night where everyone else had been sucking down liquor. Oh sure, Clint knew that Steve wasn't innocent in the 'Christ how bad can my life suck?' way. That went almost without saying. Steve saw war. Real war. He fought. He watched his men, his friends, die. He lost seventy fucking years to cold and darkness. 

But in this? All Clint could taste was sweetness, light, and wonder. 

Steve figured out fast how to kiss back, and Clint could only remember one time when an utter surrender had been so goddamned perfect. A broken girl and a broken boy and a nasty fist fight and a desperate surrendering, sundering coming together. 

Steve would never, ever, hit either of them.

It was a strange thought to flit through his mind, Clint realized, and he pulled Steve in closer, other hand in the lapel of his jacket. When Clint figured the boy needed to breathe, he pulled back only far enough to meet those pretty eyes with his. "You're beautiful," Clint murmured. "And you kiss like sin."

"You're sure this isn't?" Sinful. Steve had been shocked by a lot of things after seventy years. Perhaps the most shocking was the one thing he never discussed--that right now, right here, in this city, in this country, with these people he called family, he could just DO this. He could kiss a gorgeous, complicated, dangerous man and it would be. all. right. 

"Do you feel like it is?" Clint asked back, voice soft enough not to break this spell. It was something he couldn't answer for Steve, and he respected the Captain enough to abide by whatever his heart told him, no matter how fucked it left him and Tasha.

Steve just kissed him again, deeper, harder, like he was trying to get away from his own head and into Clint's. Clint's hand came to rest on the inside of the man's thick thigh, thumb rubbing a hair's breadth below the hard cock trapped there by unforgiving fabric. The muscle quivered, he could feel Steve's aching prick throbbing JUST there, just outside his fingertips. 

"No." The one short syllable was filled with a lot of emotions--hunger, lust, wonder, conviction. Time to LIVE in this new world. Time to live, period.

"I am so fucking glad you said that," Clint whispered, thumb sliding up and over the aching length of Steve's prick. "Because unless I miss my guess, you're about to come all over yourself." 

"OH. Clint, you have a very dirty mouth," he gasped, eyes flicking to the tinted windows, the dark and silence afforded by the privacy window. No one had heard, no one could see. It would be at least fifteen minutes before they got to their destination in Saturday night Manhattan traffic. 

"Yeah. Guilty." The gasps were heady, and Clint was ready to fucking **play**. "Did you know I'm also a mind-reader?" His lips traveled from Steve's along the defined jaw and bare hint of stubble to a delicate earlobe, nipping at it then licking just behind. The reaction was a muffled whimper and Steve's hands clenching helplessly as he focused on just not losing it right now right this second. "You're wondering how the hell you can stop this gorgeous cock from spurting before we even get to privacy. You want to come so bad, baby, but you're scared I'll think you're inexperienced."

That maddening thumb made its firm way from the leaking tip of Steve's prick, down and over to where his heavy balls were trapped in the confining wool of his suit pants. "But what I really think is that watching you try so hard to keep it together for me is fucking hot as hell, and guess what?" 

All Steve could do by way of answer was mewl and thrust up his hips, fists clenched into tight balls resting on his thighs. 

"I don't want you to keep anything together for me." Clint slid down Steve's zipper and then realized that wasn't going to afford enough wiggle room to get that monster out. But when he reached for Steve's belt, sliding the leather through the teeth to open it up, Steve started shaking so hard from the effort not to spill that he was breathing through his mouth in short, sharp exhalations. 

"Once I get this fucking perfect dick out of your pants and into my mouth, I want you to come so hard, give me so much you think you're gonna hurt me. But you won't. You can't. Feel my lips over this..." Finally, finally, he freed the poor boy's cock and balls, thumb circling around the pronounced head, slick with precome and obscenely reddened with need. "...,and give it up for me. Real pretty." 

Clint licked his lips and watched Steve's face as he took the broad tip into his mouth, moaning around it at the taste, the girth, the way it stretched his lips and made his jaw work, everything he loved as a devoted cocksucker. Some kids never get over being trained, some own it. Clint owns it. Because Jesus, just look at the sweet boy fly apart because of him. One very strong hand fisted his short hair as Steve, spilling helpless, torn noises, does exactly as he was instructed--he comes so hard that everything goes frizzy and grey around the edges and the only thing in the universe is the talented, hot, wet mouth swallowing every drop.

When it was over, well and truly over, and Steve was shaking like a goddamned leaf, Clint found himself hauled off the floorboard of the car and right into Steve's lap, where he straddled the trim hips and was submitted to the tightest hug he can ever remember. Steve was clutching him, babbling nonsense comfort words that god knows Clint didn't need because he was feeling pretty fucking fine right now, forcing down his gut reaction to being handled, and the whole thing. Yeah. Instant heartbreak. _Sometimes I make shitty choices, but sometimes, I get it right. This time, I got it right. He's exactly what we need, and we can be anything he needs._

"Shh, beautiful, it's good, I'm good, this is so good, sweet boy." Steve tucked his head under Clint's chin as he finally pulled himself together. 

"What can I do for you?" came the whisper, against the skin of his throat. "I can...can feel you." Of course Steve could--Clint's pants left little to the imagination and they were curled up tight and close. 

"Right now..." Clint felt weak saying it, but he wasn't going to lie to this man. "Right now you can keep doing exactly this. Just fucking hold on." Steve's arms tightened fractionally and he pressed his lips over Clint's pulse. 

There were scant minutes left until they got back to Clint's and somehow Clint didn't want to spend it rutting against Steve. He just...wanted this. It felt good. Rutting could wait, and when he eventually told Tash all about this night, that'd be the part they'd both laugh over. He knew. When he was with a hot guy, rutting could **never** wait. First time for everything.

"I never knew anything could feel that good," Steve whispered again, the feel of his lips moving on Clint's skin making his cock throb uncomfortably. 

"That was just the very smallest first taste, beautiful," Clint stroke the short, soft blond hair under his fingertips, hands feeling naked as usual without gloves and guards.

"You're gonna kill me by the time the sun comes up, aren't you?" And if Steve could laugh about it, it was going to be just fine.

"Little deaths count? If so, yes. Many times. I may not be on Team Science, but I do want to do a few experiments regarding your enhancements and your refractory time." Clint smiled, then reached between them and tucked Steve back in, got him all proper, as they pulled up in front of the building. 

The driver opened the door and promptly looked away, which made Clint grin even more, sliding gracefully off Steve's lap and offering him a hand out of the car. Steve only hesitated the barest moment before taking it, right in front of the driver and the pedestrians still out this late. _Oh, well done. Not a coward in any way, are you?_ As the kids said, respect.

Clint and Natasha's apartment was on the first floor above the lobby for easy entrance and egress in the event of attack, and the security was absolutely SHIELD state of the art, with combination voice recognition and analysis and retina scanning that not only confirms identity, but that neither occupant was under duress. The place was a fortress, and yet Clint stood off to the side to let Steve in.

"Sorry about the mess. Tash and me, we're not really the domestic sort, and we don't want anyone else in our space. So we live with it." And in truth the flat was more cluttered and disorganized than outright dirty. There were no dishes in the sink because neither of them cooked, just takeaway containers in the trash. Piles of clothes in various states of repair. A wall of weapons that wasn't exactly cozy, a couch with a couple of blankets that belied the fact that they frequently fell asleep out here. Like a couple of teenagers, and Clint knew it. "Arrested development or something." 

Steve barely took in the state of the apartment before his eyes returned to Clint. "It doesn't matter. I just want to kiss you again." Nope, let no one ever accuse the fair Captain of cowardice, because he dove in and caught Clint's mouth like he was still starving for it, even when he tasted himself on the man's tongue all he did was experimentally suckle at it. 

When Clint's knees about buckled, Steve's arm was there to hold him up, and then Clint remembered that, living situation aside, he was not a teenager and this sweet little pup was not going to get the better of him. He growled softly into Steve's mouth and then broke the kiss, grabbing the strong wrist and tugging till Steve got the message--follow. Right into the bedroom, with its wide, low bed still mussed from the morning. . 

Clint met Steve's eyes and let his hands fall down to the hem of his shirt, lifting it up and over his head with unselfconscious sensuality, the fabric falling from his fingers. He toed off his boots, then slid a hand down his flat belly to the heavy buckle of his belt, pulling the stiff, thick leather through the loops. The thud when it hit the floor was almost like a thunderclap in the heavy, thick air between them.

Clever archer's fingers inched to the button of his pants, but Steve ground out a low, pained noise and pounced, batting at Clint's hands until he could do the work of sliding metal through leather, working the zipper carefully down over the considerable bulge. "Fuck, Steve." 

"Don't have to seduce me, Clint, you already got me," he murmured, trembling hands sliding the leather down and off. The bigger man dropped to his knees to finish the job, and then there he was, face to face with an undeniably hard cock. "Oh....OH." His hand curled around the base, and he was baffled and aroused in equal parts by the thick barbell bisecting the heavy length. 

"Just a piercing, beautiful. You're not gonna hurt me if you touch it." God knew that Tasha like to bite it. Hell, she did the piercing herself, and here he was, still intact. 

Steve looked up at Clint through ridiculous blonde lashes, and his thumb rubbed firmly over the head, smearing around precome and sending the metal to do its little dance inside his tender flesh. "Fuck...god, Steve...that's...very, very good." 

Not as good as the next moment, when Steve, greatly emboldened by the praise and the obvious reaction, leaned in to touch his tongue to the piercing, letting it move and glide around before settling it on his tongue and taking the head of Clint's cock into his mouth to suck at experimentally. 

_Oh Christ, have mercy and protect my virtue from virgins with mouths like THAT._ "Oh fuck, Steve, this isn't how I wanna come." 

Steve pulled off, looking genuinely bereft for a moment. "No? Was it not...what do you need?"

Clint raised Steve to his feet and framed his face, darting in to lick at his lips. "I need you naked. I need you spread out on this bed. And I need your cock filling me up and stretching me and fucking me. I need to straddle your hips and lower myself down it till you're in me balls-deep. That's what I need." 

It was a measure of how those filthy words affected Steve that all he could do was moan and bite his lower lip as Clint stripped him bare, then stood back for a good long look. "Christ, Steve, have you ever..." _No of course he hasn't._ His hands turned Steve in place, Clint's body snugged up behind him. The wall of closets in their room was faced with mirrors, ostensibly to give the small space a sense of openness, but generally ended up used for more salacious purposes. Purposes like showing Captain America how incredibly perfect he was, bare to skin and hard as a rock. "Look at yourself." 

Steve kept his eyes closed for a long moment, until Clint tweaked a nipple. "Open your eyes, sweet boy. Look." His eyes fluttered open, taking in his own body, the powerful muscles, the kind face, full of _again_ wonder, the big cock straining out from its nest of blond curls. Clint watched him in the mirror from over his broad shoulder, and slowly, slowly brought his hand around Steve's hip to encircle and squeeze the base of his erection. The blood flowed deeper and richer, staining the aching flesh a darker red-purple and making Steve cry out, lean forward with one hand against the mirror. 

"Sometime very soon, I'm going to lie in that bed and you're going to stand right here, just like this, and I'm going to watch you jerk yourself off all over that mirror." Clint's voice was rough with arousal, and no matter how experienced and how well-trained he was, this sweet kid was taking him down to his component molecules the way only one other person in the world has ever done. Ever. 

"But...but not right now...because you want me inside you," Steve whispered to him, shuddering and trying to get his hips snugged back against Clint's erection, which certainly promised that when it came time to pop that cherry the response would be enthusiastic. 

"God, yes. You were made to fuck," Clint ground out, turning Steve back around and then pushing him down onto the bed, crawling over him and kissing him again, ravenous and devouring. 

"The...things you say," Steve breathed into his mouth. "Show me? I...I'm not just gonna lie here and let you do it all." 

That sweet sincerity hit him as hard as hearing something similar from Tony hit Natasha. Men who didn't want to just lie there and take even when it was offered to them... _A rare creature, but then we already knew that, didn't we?_

More of that must have shown on his face than intended, because Steve cupped his cheek. "I...just want to learn how to make love to you. Don't want to hurt you, ever." 

And the big guy just kept digging that hole. The one that was going to eventually bury Clint's cynicism and sap all his walls. "You won't. I swear to you, you won't." _You couldn't._ He laid himself out on top of Steve and took the hand from his cheek, suckling two fingers. If the position had the added benefit of rubbing his cock along Steve's then there were worse things. "First...god, first thing is you gotta open me up a little bit, hm? That gorgeous cock of yours is huge." 

Steve blushed practically ultraviolet, but didn't pull away when Clint guided his fingers into his cleft, over the tight, furled muscle already twitching and aching to be filled. The other man touched, then touched again, rubbing gently. "There's no way, Clint...I'm...not going to fit." 

Clint squirmed and moaned low in his throat. The boy had no idea how incredibly hot his naivete was. "I'll take it, I'll love it, it'll fit, and it'll feel like heaven." Blasphemy, but apparently blaspheming made Steve squirm and his cock pulse heavily against Clint's belly. Clint cocked up a leg and arched his ass up for Steve.

Careful fingers rubbed over the little hole again, and Clint pushed out, letting a fingertip inside the next time it passes back. "See..." he breathed, wanting more, wanting it NOW, but he has to be patient. Steve wouldn't enjoy this if he thought he was causing pain and not pleasure. To that end, he reached out and snagged lube from the bedside table. "Fingers." It was a soft order, but the good soldier followed, groaning because he'd obviously been very into what he was doing. 

"I'm going to slick up your fingers, then you're going to push two inside. Okay? I know how to take you." As far from a blushing virgin as it was possible to get. 

Steve surprised him again by rolling them till he was on top, snuggling Clint into crook of one arm while he mouthed softly at his lips, two fingers, broad and strong, breaching the very willing ring of muscle and making Clint's back arch off the bed. "Fuck, Steve...God..." 

"I want to see." And suddenly it was Clint biting his lower lip hard to keep from coming right there and then. _I...yeah, no control. Don't fall for your own con, don't fall for...fuck._ Steve shifted until he could see his fingers, gripped tight inside the greedy hole. 

"Like the view?" Clint ground out. "Jesus, Steve, it's good, I'm good, now..." 

"You're so beautiful," Steve murmured, and he didn't even sound all that surprised by the observation. "So hot inside, so tight. You feel so alive." 

"Okay, soldier...listen up. If you don't get in me, I'm gonna come all over myself and that's not what I want." _Please respond to orders, please please, please._

"Do I just..." Steve's fingers slipped out and he laid on his back again, hard cock slapping against his belly. "Show me." 

Clint was shaky as he crawled over Steve again, barely remembering to messily apply some lube to the truly impressive cock he was about to take before steadying himself. "Hold my hips." 

Steve was watching like he was the single most fascinating thing he'd ever seen, and when his hands gripped Clint's narrow hips he held on tight. Clint felt stable enough to guide Steve's cock inside. The noises he was making weren't dignified, but at the moment he did not give a single fuck for dignity. By the time he'd sunk down all the way, his ass flush against Steve's balls, both of them were shaking.

"Clint, I...oh...oh fuck..." Steve's hips rode up despite himself, impaling Clint even deeper, and all Clint could do was whimper and bear down and _I just made Captain America use the word 'fuck.'_ He would've said his job here was done, but nope. Not even close.

They hit a stride within a few thrusts, with Clint providing the guidance and Steve the raw power. Clint's short nails dug hard into Steve's chest, and when he rolled his hips to find that perfect spot he got another 'fuck' out of Steve. Something just changed, and Clint was just **lost**. 

And yet, there were those amazing, strong hands, first holding him, anchoring him, and then pulling him in closer, **holding** him, one behind his head and the other cupping his ass, and the fog shrank. He wasn't lost anymore. Neither of them were. Steve wouldn't leave him behind.

That was what drove Clint over the edge in the end, the simple fact that Steve **had him**. His lithe body twisted in Steve's arms and he cried out brokenly, his orgasm scouring through him. So many plans he'd had about driving Steve mad with hunger and using every trick up his sleeve to ensnare the man and keep him here...none of that mattered. 

For one obliterating moment, Steve was sure that he'd just hurt his new lover, the super strength and the blinding pleasure a terrible combination, but the instant he realized that no, he'd just made the man come without even touching his cock. His hips shot off the bed and he made noises that he'd never made before, stifled against the sweaty skin of Clint's shoulder. When it was over, it still wasn't over, because Clint couldn't let go of him, and he couldn't let go of Clint.

His hands moved, one stroking the archer's muscled back as the other cupped the man's chin and raised it. Clint allowed himself to be handled, which...well, Steve couldn't know how rare that was, how only one other person in the universe got to touch him and lead him and push him and generally manhandle him. It would be easy for an ugly flashback to intrude into this cocoon of flesh and sweat and trust _and don't fall for your own con_ but it didn't. The big men with the big hands moving him anyway they wanted just couldn't touch this.

"What?" came the barest whisper of a breath, laced with doubt, forcing Clint to remember that he was the experienced one here, he was here **for** Steve, not the other way around.

"Oh god, Steve...nothing. You are perfect." Clint blinked his eyes hard a few times, then met the other man's stare evenly. "That was perfect." 

"I'm still so close to you," Steve whispered, eyes alight with that wonder, and just like Clint suspected, the loss of 'innocence' didn't steal that wonder away. No, now Steve knew, and he still found it wonderful. 

All Clint could do was nod, clench up tight around Steve's cock so they could stay that way a little longer. "I like you so close to me," he murmured.

"You're not going to send me away, are you? I passed your test." Clint's eyes flew wide open even as they started to drift closed. 

"Test? No test, beautiful." _Please don't freak out, please don't leave._

"To see if I'm right. For both of you." It was easy to forget, with the guileless eyes and the muscles and the adorable pride the first time he figured out how to send a text, but Steve Rogers was no child. He was no lost little lamb. He was **smart**. He'd had to be.

"Is it a test if I knew you'd pass?" His voice came out a little thick, and his eyes were full of fear.

"Clint, I'm sorry, I think you destroyed my ability to think, much less talk, but..." Steve licked his lips and Clint could not resist helping him, tongue darting out to taste. "I knew it was a test from the beginning. All I could do was give you what's in me, and hope it was enough." 

"Enough? Steve...Jesus." It was almost too much. "Tash isn't the only one with trust issues. When you asked me if I was all right a second ago, I was shoving away a panic attack. I can get them, you know. When men who are stronger than me are moving me around the way they want. Because my stepfather sold me, like Tash's mother left her in a dumpster, and when I was little men had me. They treated me like a doll to pass around. And then, when I was starting to get a little too old, they realized I had other skills." 

_Oh god, why...what the fuck just came out of my fucking mouth? I am a goddamned idiot--no way is he staying around for either of us._ Another traitorous voice in his head whispered _This is the test._

And indeed, Steve was quiet for a long time. His grip on Clint loosened, and when Clint wanted to move away, to pull away and sit on the edge of the bed facing away from him, Steve didn't stop him. 

"No sudden movements. No coming up on either of you from behind and touching you. No manhandling you." Steve's voice was soft and gentle. "Makes sense, and I'm sorry I didn't know." 

Clint turned to face him, and Steve had sat up on the bed, the sheets tangling around him still smelling of him, of Clint, and of Natasha. It was a perfect grace note. "Steve, it was wrong of me to try to lure you like this." 

"Did you want me? Do you want me?" 

"God yes. I think...I think I need you." How fucking hard was that to admit?

"Then it wasn't wrong. You didn't lie. You just played a very complex situation very, very carefully, because that is what you do." Steve reached out a hand, making sure Clint saw it, and curled it around his shoulder. "But now you can stop triangulating, and come back here." 

Clint wasted not a moment before crawling back into Steve's arms and settling in. "She's not easy, Steve." 

"Are any of us easy?" Steve replied softly.

"Fuck." He laughed against Steve's chest. "Not a one of us. Maybe Thor. He seems easy. Sort of." 

"Is she worth it?" Steve already knew the answer to this one, but Clint got the idea that he wanted it said aloud.

"She's worth everything, Steve. Everything." 

"Then...you'll have to tell me what to do. And not do. And can I stay? Tonight?" Steve's voice was going for cool, but he sounded young again. Uncertain how to navigate.

"You think I'm gonna fuck my friend then send him home after? You're staying, soldier. If you're very good, there are bagels in it for you in the morning." 

Steve's smile was...Jesus, it was like sunshine. Like a disinfectant. "What do I have to do for lox?"

"Don't make me move from right here." Because suddenly, Clint was just fucking tired. The joints that ache, the half-dozen scrapes and contusions and crap he walks around with all the time...he was exhausted, and Steve was so warm and so perfect and...

The last thing Clint was aware of was Steve's lips, kissing his mouth and his cheek and his forehead as he drifted off to sleep.


	3. Look That's Like Laughing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The big night at last.
> 
> _Sure, she gets the easy one that only turns into a big green monster when he's stressed. I get the fussy toddler._

"Tony, so help me, I'm gonna give you the 'pull yourself together' slap if you don't stop this shit and let me fix your tie." Clint had been half-chasing Tony around his room for the past half-hour, trying to get the man decently attired and ready to go NOT make an ass out of himself in front of the justice and all of their friends. Convincing Tony to stand still wasn't easy in the first place. Convincing a hyper-kinetic Tony to stand still when he was getting married in less than an hour was nigh impossible.

It didn't help that Natasha just texted him a picture of her and Bruce, all dressed, lounging on the couch in a spare bedroom and sharing a bottle of wine while watching Game of Thrones. _Sure, she gets the easy one that only turns into a big green monster when he's stressed. I get the fussy toddler._

//Tash, ask Bruce how to make him chill the fuck out.//

//Bruce says that topping him usually works, but he'd appreciate if you'd refrain from the fucking part. Also, Ned dies.//

//I hate you.//

"Okay, Stark." Clint planted himself in front of the pacing genius, swiping away the schematics he was fiddling with and glaring at him with his best 'don't fuck with me' stare. "STILL." Tony obeyed, his eyes flashing with more nerves than anger. Clint made short work of the tie, checked the rest over, and pronounced him presentable.

"I'm not your prize-winning Clydesdale," Tony groused.

"Today, you are. You are my pretty, pretty show pony and you are not going out there and making everyone think I'm a shitty best man." Clint released him with a pat to his ass and then sighed with relief. He had the ring, check. He had Tony, check. Now he was going to have a very large drink.

**

If both grooms were just the most minutely tipsy, no one seemed to notice. If their hands were shaky when they exchanged rings, no one commented. But when the justice asked if they had any vows to add...everyone noticed. Everyone heard.

**

"I've spent my life trying my best to not to ever, ever grow up. I'm vain, I'm careless, I'm arrogant. You made me want to grow up. To become not just a man, but a man who's...who's worthy of you. Because you are the best human being I have ever met, and I would do anything to deserve you. I would go begging. I would swallow every ounce of pride. I would walk on...on fucking broken glass. And obviously I didn't write these down because I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to cuss during your wedding vows. But here we are. Yeah....here we are, and I love you in ways that I didn't think I was capable of. I love you past the point of reason, past the point of logic. And it all comes down to one vow, really. Just one. I swear to you, I give you my vow, that I will work every single day to make you never, ever regret standing here with me."

There was a long, shaky pause.

"From the first moment we met, you saw me. You've always seen. me. All of me. You were stubborn, you were pushy, you were rude, you were...so beautiful and terrible in your determination that no matter what, we would have this. We would have this life together. You didn't just love the guy standing here in a suit trying not to look **too** rumpled next you. You loved all of it. All of me. You took away the fear. You took away the despair. You made me laugh. You gave me a life, rather than some bleak **thing** that I just had to get through. And I love you so much that sometimes it feels like it's ripping my soul to pieces. So...so, my vow...is that I will never, ever stop. I will never give up again. I will never doubt your love."

You could have heard a pin drop, there in the penthouse of the tower, with all of those people, all of their friends and colleagues, just holding their breath through the whole exchange. Like they weren't sure if they should laugh or cry or both, but then Tony and Bruce managed it. They laughed, and leaned in to kiss the tears off each others' cheeks. "We're idiots." "That was ridiculous." "I love you." 

"You're also married idiots. By the power vested in me by the great state of New York, I now pronounce you married in the eyes of the law and the sight of your community." The justice, an older man who probably shouldn't be so moved by all this newfangled nonsense, looked a bit verklempt himself. "Just kiss already." 

Now that...that part was easy.

**

Two hours later, after a blur of dinner plates and cake and all of the pointless little rituals that Clint and Natasha must have memorized because why accept an assignment if you're not going to do your homework, they finally shook it all off and made it out to the dance floor. 

As far as first songs go, it was one thing that Tony left to Bruce, completely. Hadn't even wanted to know. If he got involved at all, it'd end up being something like "Dirty Deeds", and that wasn't okay. He'd forgotten that Bruce was a) a giant romantic and b) more than a bit of a hippy. All he'd say is that it was a song he'd loved since his post-grad days, one that he'd never expected to truly **understand** , much less feel himself. 

And so the first time Bruce heard ["Falling Is LIke This"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAr2Stq4Hls) was at his own wedding, with Bruce wrapped in his arms, head tucked up under Tony's chin.

Also, Bruce was c) perfection. 

**

Bruce was content to stay on the dance floor all night, mostly because it gave him all the excuse he needed to just hold his new husband close. Through slitted, satisfied eyes he watched everyone else once again. With a growing awareness of how all the pieces of his psyche, green or not, fit together, he was becoming ever more protective of all of 'his' people. Like 'hurt one of them and you'll get pounded to a pink paste' protective. 

He found it vaguely alarming. Tony found it insanely hot.

Natasha was dancing with Steve again, more relaxed in his arms than before, moving with her boneless grace and pressing her face against his chest. Clint was watching with a smile, because Steve's hands were so gentle at her hips, and yes, there it was. Clint and Steve smiling at each other over her head. She'd only just got in last night, and while her dress hugged every curve, it also showed little skin, and Bruce had noticed earlier than she was moving a little more slowly than usual. 

The three of them traded off, and Bruce saw Clint lean in to brush a kiss against Steve's mouth, and to his surprise Natasha followed suit. It was almost sweet, though he couldn't quite parse that.

The only other couple his eyes kept returning to was Phil and the adorable little blond. So the bachelor party hadn't been a fluke or a drunken one-night-thing. Fitz was wrapped around the man like a lamprey, eyes flashing any time someone wandered close enough to cut in on them. Fierce and adorable. Phil should hold onto that one. Nothing was going to scare him off.

"Hey...if SHIELD gets pissy about Phil's boyfriend..." 

"He's got a job at Stark Industries. Duh." Tony? Already on top of it? What a shock. It made him smile and tilt his head up for a kiss that ended just this side of pornographic. "God, when can we get out of here and consummate this business." 

"Consummate." The word choice made Bruce laugh. "That's the verb you're going for?"

"I already dropped one f-bomb during my vows, I'm trying to be a gentleman for the rest of the night." 

"God, why?"

**

Consummation when you're fucking a man who could end up in a variety of forms by the end of the act sort of negated the 'sneak off to a broom closet' approach. They needed an actual room and actual privacy, and that meant waiting. 

For another whole hour. Until they escaped for the honeymoon. "Think they'll realize we just 'escaped' to the bedroom till the party's over?" Tony asked, grinning as he stripped his husband down to skin. 

"Do you care?" Bruce's grin wouldn't go away either, and he kept laughing even when he pushed Tony back on the bed and crawled over him, mouthing kisses and bites along an arched throat and down a flat belly, clearly on his way to the straining cock. 

"Fuck, no...ten more minutes of feeling you against me and not being able to touch and I would have bent over the fucking buffet table for you," he groaned...and then laughed again at the image. 

"Kinda glad you didn't...if you'd messed up the chocolate fountain thingie I think there would have been an open revolt." The sound of Tony's happiness did crazy things to his poor heart, so he just swallowed the man's cock down to the root and suckled nice and hard, hands pressing his thighs apart so he could pull up Tony's hips. 

Tony cried out and squirmed and incoherently demanded and well, Bruce was feeling very indulgent, moving his mouth from a hard prick to the tender furl of muscle that opened up for him almost desperately. Fuck. "It is so goddamned beautiful the way you always open up for me, like you're only really okay when I'm in you." 

"Smart...smart boy. Now...god. Hurry it up, I wanna get consummated." 

"I married a brat." But Tony did have a point--this was not the time for hours of teasing and getting so damn worked up they couldn't control themselves. Somehow, this was different. Bruce felt...calm. Centered. Like a Mack truck couldn't knock him off kilter. He went straight for the lube, slicking his cock and using his thumb to work Tony open and spread around the slipperiness. 

When he pushed inside the squirming, moaning body of his husband, there was not even a hint of green to his skin, and Tony finally realized it when he stopped for just a second to really take IN what was happening. "Ah, baby..."

God, it was so **easy.** His forehead pressed to Tony's and he shared the man's breath as he found a rhythm, one that was slow, long, hard, almost pulling out before returning back where he belonged. "Tony..." 

"I know. Shhh.." Don't jinx it. As much as Tony loved every aspect of his beloved, this was a treasure, a revelation, and he didn't want it to end.

It was a gift.

It was magic.

It was everything.

Tony's hands carded through Bruce's hair, and they traded long, filthy, slow kisses. Like being mired in honey, until their eyes met one too many times, and the rhythm tripped, sped up, and yet, even as Bruce obviously hurtled toward orgasm he stayed just as he'd been. A man. Nothing more. A man making love to his husband on their wedding night.

Something about the very normalcy of it, the rightness, the way it made the whole dreamlike night **real** added up to Tony clutching Bruce to him, legs wrapped around his husband's waist so tightly as he came, cock spurting erratically into the tight space left where their bodies pressed together. Bruce shuddered and kissed Tony messily, letting his cries be swallowed when his own orgasm overtook him a few scant heartbeats later. 

Long minutes passed, and of course Tony found his voice first. "I don't know about you, but early results indicate this marriage thing is fucking awesome." 

"You're fucking awesome."

Tony laughed again, holding Bruce even closer. "That was so weird coming out of your mouth." 

"M' just....yeah. Good." 

"Me too, baby. Get some sleep, hm?" 

But Bruce was already out, leaving Tony to cradle him protectively until sleep overtook him as well.


	4. The Next There's Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A honeymoon on a private island, and Tony and Bruce decide to make a tape. No, not that kind. They're fed up with the bullshit the haters are saying about them, and decide to go on the offensive.

Tony let the camera drones wander the room, counting on their programming to get all the angles. It doesn't have to be a work of art, just a statement. A testament. Their testament. 

Despite his best intentions, Tony just couldn't stay away from the news alerts he'd set up after the engagement went public. If there had been even a hair less rampant fuckery over the wedding, he would have just dispatched his botnets and dealt with it, like last time. But no, now the haters were talking about kids. 

They were talking about how Tony and Bruce, or rather, always, Iron Man and The Hulk, were supposed to be heroes that kids look up to, and that their filthy sodomy was to corrupt those same kids. That they weren't the good guys at all, just dirty perverts, and see? Didn't we tell you that homosexuality and bestiality were just the same? We told you! Is that Hulk thing even HUMAN? 

So, no. Nope. No way he can loll about on the beach with Bruce and ignore this for another two weeks. Bruce padded into the huge open area that was, apparently, one of their many homes. One that Tony had bought special for the occasion, just like the island it sat on, tucked away off the coast of Belize. Something felt deeply wrong about starting his marriage in any place where he'd taken other people, other lovers. Something needed to be just theirs. 

Bruce had just shaken his head and made an enormous donation to Oxfam to offset it. And then, well. It **was** beautiful. A tiny, postage stamp sized Paradise where he could putter around and look at the plants and birds and what have you in the small swath of rain forest, or romp around being big and green without the slightest worry. And the possibilities for where and how to fuck were pretty much endless. 

For once in his adult life, Bruce wasn't worried about a single goddamned thing. Until he'd rolled over in bed and blearily looked over Tony's shoulder, reading what was on the flexible polymer sheet of interactive paper before his husband could swipe it off. "That...seriously? That's how they're playing it? Think of the children?"

And then they'd devised a plan. Those fucking zealots were assuming they were too ashamed of their inequity to show their faces. They thought, no doubt, that neither Tony nor Bruce had the balls to just say what needed saying, all out in the open. So it was time for a little home movie of their wedding and honeymoon. to go viral.

Tony was puttering at the stand up desk in the corner of the room, dressed much as he was in swim trunks and a tee shirt. Bruce went over and wrapped his arms around him from behind, and took some of Tony's weight as he leaned back.

"How's the editing going?" 

"Considering I had to hack the surveillance from SHIELD...not badly." He threw up the feed he'd been working on from the wedding. "Took some doing, but there's not a single operative in any of the frames. Just you and me, and the Justice. I also managed to get the light trued-up, all the footage was in that lovely shade of washed-out SHIELD surveillance blue. Not flattering. Put at least ten years on you." 

Bruce laughed and his fingers splayed low on Tony's belly, heading right for the ticklish spot. "And we can't have that, what with me being your trophy wife." 

Tony twisted and his stomach rippled under the touch, but he couldn't help laughing. "You'll make me fuck this all up and then no sex for you until I fix it again."

The tickling stopped immediately. "It looks really good. Hell, we look really good. And you're a good dancer. And this is making me very sappy, so maybe we should just save it and do the rest." 

Tony did exactly that, and looked over his shoulder at Bruce. "You ready? Still cool with just going freeform?" 

"I'm ready. And if I start to stammer and act like an idiot, you can talk for both of us." 

"Yeah...well. I like hearing your voice. I think they'll like hearing your voice, too." Yet another thing that Tony had learned. There were, in fact, sounds he liked more than his own yammering.

"Then let's get this done, huh? And get back to doing nothing for once." 

"I started the cameras when you stopped tickling me." Tony grinned, then looked over at them. "Hi everybody. I'm Tony Banner-Stark and this is Bruce Banner-Stark. As you can see, he's adorable and a huge sap and he thinks you guys don't want to hear his voice."

Bruce blushed and shook his head. "Tony, warn me next time! I won't be so dorky." 

"Yes, you will, and that's why I love you. So everyone...You may remember us from the Battle of New York, even though my husband looked a lot bigger and greener at that point. You're hearing some pretty gross things about us, actually, from people who really, really ought to know better." 

"They're saying that our relationship is shameful and horrible and disgusting. They're probably saying it right where you can hear it, and you know...parenting win, grown people who oughta know better. Hate isn't a family value." 

"Bruce has like, an endless well of hippy wisdom like that. He actually managed to sneak a bumper sticker on a QuinJet that said 'It will be a great day when our schools have all the funding they need, and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.' It was Hawkeye's QuinJet, mind." Tony grinned. "He's got more...if you're all good, maybe the next video will be Bruce's hippy wisdom, volume one." 

"He keeps telling me we can have schools AND bombers, but I am yet to be convinced." Bruce got out from behind Tony and walked over to the sofa, sitting down a beat before Tony followed him and did the same.

"Bottom line," Tony said, curling their fingers together palm-to-palm. "Is that a lot of people out there hate us because we fell in love. And we did. We fell head over heels in love."

"I know, I know guys, ew. Nobody wants to hear about old people in love." Bruce laughed, but Tony pulled his mock-offended 'I resemble that remark' face and mouthed at the camera 'SO NOT OLD!'. 

"Maybe not, but they need to hear this part. What those ass...jerks don't realize or don't care about is that out of all of you out there hearing their hate, some of you are like us. Some of you guys will fall in love with other guys. Some of you girls will fall in love with other girls." Tony shrugged. "Some of you will love both. Some will love neither. Some will feel that the body they've been born into isn't the right gender, or that gender itself is just not their thing."

"And here's the deal, from two actual scientists. Actually, I'm also a medical doctor." Bruce picked up the thread. "It's okay. It's. O.K. What you feel is good. Love is beautiful. Until I met Tony, I honestly believed no one in the world could truly love me, because I was a monster. but he did. He did, and it healed a lot of bad things in my head. A lot of loneliness. A lot of sadness."

"Love can work miracles. I thought I was broken because I couldn't love. Until I met Bruce. So don't listen to them. Don't do it. Don't let them make you hate yourselves. I'm not gonna sit here with my husband on our honeymoon and have the gall to tell you, struggling and alone, that 'it's going to get better.'" Bruce did the air quotes, even though Tony was talking. 

"Because it might not, not for a long time. You might hear things every day that make you doubt yourself," Bruce added.

"Don't. Listen." Tony was emphatic. "There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with us." He paused. "Okay, there's plenty wrong with us..."

"Tony won't let you hand him things, it's really strange."

"Bruce gets ticked off and turns into a Hulk." 

"But my point is," Tony continued, "Being in love with each other is not one of the things that's wrong. It's one of the only things, at least with me, that's right at all. Bruce is perfect." 

"Tony, don't be..." 

"No, seriously...you are. In fact, to show everyone how perfect you are, I put together a bit of a montage. So kids, did you know that tabloids offered me like millions of dollars to film the wedding? I told them where they could stick their cameras and their money. And now, from us to you guys, what no amount of money could buy."

"Tony." Bruce looked at him, and the smile that spread across his face was beautiful. 

"So don't listen to anyone who says love is ugly or sinful or dirty. This is what it looks like when an egomaniacal guy in a metal suit falls in love with the kindest, best, sweetest man who ever turned into a giant green rage monster." 

"And...hang on. Okay? Just hang on. Please." 

Tony put hotline numbers up at that point, which stayed up in a corner as the footage began to play. He put his arm around his husband, and they watched the vows, the dancing. Cake, oh so much cake.A fair bit of kissing. More than fair. 

The last word went to Tony, naturally. "When I proposed to Bruce, it wasn't planned. But the second it was out of my mouth, I knew that it was the right thing. The fundamentally, only right thing for the two of us. I told him that I was not, could not ever, be ashamed of him. I wanted to stand up in front of the whole world and show how much I love him."

"Don't let them shame you, either. No shame. No hate. Life's too short."


End file.
